Sunday, October 4, 2009

Last century modern

On Wednesday night (I know, might as well have been the Jurassic in blog-time) EzraPounded and I attended a panel discussion about preserving '60s architecture, set up by the Los Angeles Conservancy and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. They're ramping up for the magic year of 2010, which is the 50-year mark for 1960, and 50 years carry a ton of legal weight in HistoricPreservationLand.

It will be interesting to see how the preservation battles continue to play out in the upcoming years, especially here in Southern California. In Los Angeles County alone there are 88 individual cities, and a good share of them incorporated around 50 years ago, starting with Lakewood in 1954. In fact, 43 out of the 88 cities incorporated in 1954 or later. That means that preservationists will need to keep tabs on a lot more cities -- young cities -- that had not previously put too much thought or care into saving and restoring local treasures.

Here's a building on my watch list...the Pico Rivera Library, a nice circular library built in 1961. County Supervisor Gloria Molina has pledged $6 million in matching funds if the City of Pico Rivera is ever ready to cough up for a library replacement, blasting the existing library back up to the mothership. So far, no movement.